All posts by George Cooper

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

The stunning hardcover of Atmosphere features beautiful endpapers and a premium dust jacket!

“Thrilling . . . heartbreaking . . . uplifting . . . the fast-paced, emotionally charged story of one ambitious young woman, finding both her voice and her passion.”—Kristin Hannah, author of The Women

“NASA? Space missions? The ’80s? This is a collection of all the things I love.”—Andy Weir, author of Project Hail Mary and The Martian

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love—this time among the stars.

How To Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast

“With propulsive humor and perspective on her annus horribilis, Jong-Fast achieves the memoir’s transformative work of alchemy, arming us all with lines so good you won’t just want to underline them, you will want to cut them out to share.” —The Washington Post

“This raw, intimate memoir is a stunning portrait of difficult relationships and how we survive them.” —People

“Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir is mesmerizing, intimate, wise, unputdownable, crazily honest, heartbreaking, funny, illuminating—beautiful and painful at the same time, just like real life.” —Anne Lamott



From the political writer and podcaster, a ferociously honest and disarmingly funny memoir about her elusive mother’s encroaching dementia and a reckoning with her complicated childhood

Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose sensational book Fear of Flying launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just out of reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year.

How to Lose Your Mother is a compulsively readable memoir about an intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and the upheavals that challenge our hard-won adulthood. A pitch-perfect balance of acceptance and rage, humor and heart, How to Lose Your Mother tells a universal story of loss alongside a singular story of a literary life. This is a memoir that will stand alongside the classics of the genre.

Flashlight by Susan Choi

A Dakota Johnson x TeaTime Book Club Pick

A Must-Read: The New York TimesNew York Magazine, 
TimeThe Washington PostLos Angeles TimesThe Boston GlobeEntertainment WeeklyUSA TodayThe Chicago Review of BooksForbes, and Literary Hub

“A major world writer . . . Choi is in thrilling command.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“Gorgeous . . . Almost impossibly heartbreaking.” —Sam Worley, New York Magazine
“Devastating.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“Ranks among her best work.” —Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times

A novel tracing a father’s disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise.

One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old.

Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, is Korean, but was born and raised in Japan; he lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne’s illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences.

But now it is just Anne and Louisa, Louisa and Anne, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of great loss. United, separated, and also repelled by their mutual grief, they attempt to move on. But they cannot escape the echoes of that night. What really happened to Louisa’s father?

Shifting perspectives across time and character and turning back again and again to that night by the sea, Flashlight chases the shock waves of one family’s catastrophe, even as they are swept up in the invisible currents of history.

A monumental new novel from the National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heartgripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see.

How Countries Go Broke by Ray Dalio

“This book is a gift to humanity….Ray provides a solution to what is the biggest and most certain threat to our prosperity.” —Henry M. Paulson Jr.

“An invaluable resource for policymakers, investors, and citizens.” —Lawrence H. Summers

An urgent warning about the American economy from Ray Dalio, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Principles.

Do big government debts threaten our collective well-being? Are there limits to debt growth? Can a big, important reserve currency country like the United States really go broke—and what would that look like?

For decades, politicians, policymakers, and investors have debated these questions, but the answers have eluded them. In this groundbreaking book, Ray

Dalio, one of the greatest investors of our time who anticipated the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2010–12 European debt crisis, shares for the first time his detailed explanation of what he calls the “Big Debt Cycle.” Understanding this cycle is critical for helping policymakers, investors, and the general public grasp where we are and where we are headed with the debt issue. Dalio’s model points toward surprisingly straightforward solutions for dealing with the debt problems that the US, Europe, Japan, and China face today.

How Countries Go Broke also shows how these debt problems are related to the other forces—political within countries, geopolitical between countries, natural (droughts, floods, and pandemics), and technological (most importantly, AI)—that together are causing what Dalio calls the “Overall Big Cycle” changes in the world order. By reading this book, you will improve your understanding of what’s happening now and what to do about it.

Steve Martin Writes the Written Word

With an exclusive new introduction and some never-before-published pieces, a collection of greatest hits from one of the most beloved comedians of our time, Steve Martin, now starring in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. 

Steve Martin Writes the Written Word is a perfect introduction for new fans and a must-have for longtime fans, showcasing the longevity, range, and—above all—hilarity of the master. ​Filled with his singular characters and musings–Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a modern-day neurotic yearning to break free in The Pleasure of My Company, to the comedic and heartbreaking relationship between

Neiman Marcus shopgirl Mirabelle and businessman Ray Porter in Shopgirl, to meditations on bad neighbors and so much more–this collection shows the breadth of Martin’s work, which is bolstered by a mix of brand-new and previously published selections of his writing for the New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” column.

A tantalizing page-turner from start to finish that will appeal to a wide range of literary appetites, Steve Martin Writes the Written Word is a brilliant tour through a singular mind. 

Never Flinch by Stephen King

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by The New York Times Book ReviewAV ClubVarietyThe Boston Globe, The Minneapolis Star TribuneVultureMen’s HealthBook RiotThe New York PostGoodreadsAARPPaste, and more!

From master storyteller Stephen King comes an extraordinary new novel with intertwining storylines—one about a killer on a diabolical revenge mission, and another about a vigilante targeting a feminist celebrity speaker—featuring the beloved Holly Gibney and a dynamic new cast of characters.

When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to “kill thirteen innocents and one guilty” in “an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man,” Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help.

Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women’s rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate’s message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate’s bodyguard—a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness.

Featuring a riveting cast of characters both old and new, including world-famous gospel singer Sista Bessie and an unforgettable villain addicted to murder, these twinned narratives converge in a chilling and spectacular conclusion—a feat of storytelling only Stephen King could pull off.

Thrilling, wildly fun, and outrageously engrossing, Never Flinch is one of King’s richest and most propulsive novels.

Bees: A Guide for the Curious by Susan E. Clark

As the world becomes more uncertain and life more stressful, getting outside and connecting with nature is an easy and affordable way to boost our mental and physical health.

In Bees, trained biologist and wellness writer Susan E. Clark introduces the curious reader to the wonderful world of bees. In the first part of the book, you will learn fascinating bee facts, and how these tiny insects have inspired humans throughout the ages, from rock art in 8000 BCE, to literature, medicine and more. The second part features 30 species of bees, each with a detailed illustration to help identify them, as well as when they are active and where to spot them. There are countless opportunities to experience nature on our doorstep, and Bees will encourage you to do just that. 

Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan

An electrifying story of love, betrayal, and the complicated allure of bougie domesticity

“Dinan writes like some kind of demigod. Her fictions make thinkable new realities for how we live and what we might expect from each other.”
– Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

You can fall in love with an outline, you can even make a home with one, but there will come a time where you can’t deny the bones their flesh. A person is no fewer than two things.

Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and irritating exes rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn’t these be the best years of her life? Why doesn’t it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.

Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends, and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fall-out of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means. Can we be more than our worst mistakes? Is it possible to make peace with the past? 

Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships—familial and romantic—that make us who we are.

A #1 Sunday Times (UK) Bestseller • A New York Times “New Nonfiction to Read This Spring” Recommendation • A Guardian “Nonfiction to Look Forward To in 2025” Pick • A Washington Post “Book to Watch For” in 2025

• A Financial Times “What to Read in 2025” Selection • A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of 2025
From the best-selling author of Underland and “the great nature writer…of this generation” (Wall Street Journal), a revelatory book that transforms how we imagine rivers—and life itself.

Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.

Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days.

Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.

Food Person by Adam Roberts

For fans of Alison Espach’s The Wedding People and Dolly Alderton’s Good Material, a delectable comedy of manners about cooking, ambition, and friendship set in the food world as a young and socially awkward writer takes a job ghostwriting the cookbook for a famous (and famously chaotic) Hollywood starlet.

Isabella Pasternack is a food person. She revels in the beauty of a perfectly cooked egg, she daydreams about her first meal at Chez Panisse, and every inch of her tiny apartment teems with cookbooks, from Prune to Cooking by Hand to Roast Chicken and Other Stories. What Isabella is not, unfortunately, is a gainfully employed person. In the wake of a disastrous live-streamed soufflé demonstration, Isabella is summarily fired from her job at a digital food magazine and must quickly find a way to keep herself in buckwheat and anchovy paste. When

offered the opportunity to ghostwrite a cookbook for Molly Babcock, the once-beloved television actress now mired in scandal, Isabella warily accepts. Unfortunately, Molly quickly proves herself to be a nightmare collaborator: hungover, flaky, shallow, and—worst of all—indifferent to food. But between Molly’s bizarre late-night texts, goofy confessions, and impromptu road trips, Isabella reluctantly begins to see Molly’s charms. Can Isabella corral Molly out of the gossip rags and into the kitchen? Can she find the key to Molly’s heart and stomach? Or will Isabella’s devotion to her culinary idols and Molly’s monstrous ego send the entire cookbook—and both of their careers—up in flames?

A mouthwatering, hilarious debut peppered with insider food world detail—the real writers behind celebrity chef cookbooks, the hot restaurants that run on the backs of their sous-chefs, the secret to perfect blinis à la Russe—Adam Roberts’s Food Person is a literary soufflé—a deceptively light, deliciously rich, showstopping confection.